High View of God Essential!

A. W. Tozer (1898-1963) is well worth reading, perhaps we should say, even obligatory reading. At least two of his approximately 50 books should make every Christian's "Top Ten" list, viz., The Pursuit of God, and The Knowledge of the Holy. I have found myself as a minister turning to Knowledge of the Holy over and over. Here are a few quotable paragraphs from the first chapter, Why We Must Think Rightly About God: 

The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. . . .

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. . . . 

A High View of God is the Sine Qua Non of True Christianity.

A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

A Poignant Warning Issued 50 Years Ago!

It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral calamity.

The Inevitable Consequence of a Low View of God--

Perverted notions about God soon rot the religion in which they appear. The long career of Israel demonstrates this clearly enough, and the history of the Church confirms it. So necessary to the Church is a lofty concept of God that when that concept in any measure declines, the Church with her worship and her moral standards declines along with it. The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.

A Clarion Call to the Church

The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him - and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art or science can devise.

Can you understand why I think Tozer's words are vital for today? He sounded out then what he saw as a calamity, but which time has revealed to have become utterly catastrophic.

Praying Men At a Premium!

It is easier to talk about prayer than it is to pray. Yet it is necessary to talk about it. Still, it is better to do both. This did E. M. Bounds (1835-1913), who wrote 8 books on prayer, all of which are convicting. But it is a necessary conviction. If you don't have it, there is a wonderful collection of his works all under one cover for an unbelievably low price! It's a great gift item! Or, you can read him online.

The following excerpts come from The Weapon of Prayer, Chapter 6 - "Praying Men Are at a Premium." 

No insistence in the Bible is more pressing than the injunction it lays upon men to pray. . . .

Languid praying, without heart or strength, with neither fire nor tenacity, defeats its own avowed purpose. The prophet of olden times laments that in a day which needed strenuous praying there was no one who “stirred up himself to take hold of God” [Isaiah 64:7]. Christ charges us “not to faint” in our praying [Luke 18:1]. Laxity and indifference are great hindrances to prayer, both to the practice of praying and the process of receiving; it requires a brave, strong, fearless and insistent spirit to engage in successful prayer. . . . 

These days of ours have sore need of a generation of praying men, a band of men and women through whom God can bring His great and His greatest movements more fully into the world. The Lord our God is not straitened [i.e., restricted] within Himself, but He is straitened in us, by reason of our little faith and weak praying. A breed of Christian is greatly needed who will seek tirelessly after God,—who will give Him no rest, day and night, until He hearken to their cry. The times demand praying men who are all athirst for God’s glory, who are broad and unselfish in their desires, quenchless for God, who seek Him late and early, and who will give themselves no rest until the whole earth be filled with His glory.

Amen!

WARNING--Serious Thought Under Attack!

What we suffer from today is not just an information explosion, but a conflagration! "Google," for all the wonder it offers, can simply overwhelm the user. There is seemingly no end to all the legitimate trails down which we may head in an effort to tap just about any subject. But that is part of our problem isn't it? We may easily amass far more than we can reasonably comprehend. And we end up sacrificing depth of meaning on the altar of endless searching. 

Indeed, how fragile has become serious thought. How quickly does it succumb to "sound bite" trivia or classroom banter. We may even read something substantial only to find it dissipate into the mist of footnote qualification. Qualification is important, but more critically, we must ask, "Did it mean anything to us?" We eventually lose the ability to recognize the truly significant. What good were truth were it not to impact us? In this information age, granted we see more but it seems our eyes of discernment have grown fuzzy, and our minds become anesthetized to truth's implications. 

The believer has a built-in spiritual GPS system, namely, the Spirit who guides them into all truth (John 16:13). Believers rely on the Spirit to give them, as it were, "tunnel-vision" for the vital. Further, Proverbs teaches that "the upright gives thought to his ways" (21:29b). In other words, he takes what he hears and ponders it's meaning in order to put it into practice. "He does not say, What would I do? What have I a mind to? and that will I have; but, What should I do? What does God require of me? What is duty? What is prudence? What is for edification?" (Matthew Henry). It is easy to take what one hears and downgrade it to the arena of opinion, thus, in effect nullifying any responsibility to interact with the truth. Often Jesus would close out his teachings with a call to serious consideration, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

LAND! PLEASE LAND!

I fear that not only I, but many today will hunt down so many web sites that we will be like a plane in a holding pattern awaiting a place to land. If we don't take care, we'll run out of fuel and plummet to earth. Only God has perfect knowledge and the perfect ability to sort it out immediately. Everyone else must be selective!

ADVISE?

1. Be quiet. Don't feel as though you have to have radio or TV running all the time. Being "still" is the prescriptive way God gives us so that we may "know that He is God" (Ps. 46:10).

2. Read Scripture at a slower pace, taking time to pause, ponder and reflect on what it means. In other words, meditate.

3. Seek out deeper meaning, for God is a great God. The old railroad warning sign applies here: WATCH, LOOK, AND LISTEN!

4. In short, discipline yourself to read carefully. There are those who rightly advise us not to make a habit of reading many books superficially, but fewer books deeply.  

A Sober Call to the Unconverted-Spurgeon

Some of the greatest evangelists of the past have been pastors. And a great number of them were reformed in doctrine. C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) is one of the more popular of these. The following is one of his many sober calls to those who have heard but not believed in Jesus Christ. It is from the sermon: "Man Humbled, God Exalted" Vol. 59). 

I will say but a few sentences, but let them be caught by your ears, and seized by your hearts. In this house tonight there are some of you who are not reconciled to God by the death of his Son. You have never humbled yourselves, and taken the Lord’s Christ to be your only hope. Now, mark this: if you will not come down by grace, you must and shall come down by judgment. You will be humbled, sinner, if not to penitence, then to remorse: if not to hopeful conversion, to hopeless despair. Every high look shall be brought down in the day when he shall sit upon the great white throne, and call the quick and the dead to judgment. “Rocks! hide us!  Mountains! fall upon us! Hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne!” Who said that? Why, the very man who once said, “Lord, I thank thee that I am not as other men are” Yes, sirs, and the very man who once said, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” he it is who now cries, “Hide me, hide me from the accusing face.”

Behold, ye despisers, wonder and perish! If you will not be humbled at the cross you shall be humbled at the throne of judgment. If mercy wins you not, judgment shall subdue you. If you will not bend, you shall break. He who will not melt in the fires of love shall be consumed in the furnace of wrath. Oh! my hearer, what a dread alternative is this! “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little! Blessed are all they that put their trust in him!” There is a wonderful power in humiliation. Ahab humbled himself, and though it was not with a saving humility, yet the curse did not fall upon him as it would have done. Even in a natural humiliation there may be some withdrawal of temporal chastisement, but if the Lord shall give you true brokenness of heart, remember it is written, “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” There is not one word in the Bible against a humble soul. There is not one curse against a sinner who feels his need and comes empty-handed. Come, poor needy one, poor helpless one; thou ruined stoner, without any hope of thyself; thou bankrupt sinner, come.

“‘Tis perfect poverty alone,

That sets our soul at large;

While we can call one mite our own,

We have no full discharge.”

When we have done with self, and with all self's hopes, and projects, and plans, and trust only in the finished work of Jesus, then may we rejoice, for we are saved, and save eternally.

Colson: I know what Illinois governor feels like now

CNN Politics.com ran this article highlighting Chuck Colson upon his reception of the Presidential Citizen's Medal. What follows centered on what really is most important in this life of pseudo power in politics and life. 

Editor's note: Charles W. Colson, a former aide to President Nixon, is the founder of Prison Fellowship, the world's largest Christian outreach to prisoners. President Bush this week acknowledged Colson's work among prisoners, awarding him the Presidential Citizens Medal. Colson was imprisoned for obstruction of justice in the attempt to smear Daniel Ellsberg, who disclosed the secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers.

Ex-Nixon aide Charles W. Colson says pride undermines the spirit and is the source of political corruption.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- If anyone knows how Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich feels right now, I do.

On Tuesday, the governor was arrested in a glare of publicity and charged with going on "a corruption crime spree," as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald described it -- including alleged attempts to sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat.

Some 35 years ago that ugly glare of publicity was focused on me as I was charged with a Watergate-related crime, subsequently convicted and sent to prison. The governor hasn't been convicted and is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

In the wake of Blagojevich's arrest, many Americans are left wondering once again how intelligent people can do such stupid things -- especially when they've achieved the pinnacle of power.

The answer comes down to pride.

At the height of Watergate, a dear friend of mine, Tom Phillips, then CEO of Raytheon, invited me to his home. As we sat in his kitchen, Tom read to me a chapter on pride from a little book by C.S. Lewis titled "Mere Christianity."

Lewis wrote, "There is one vice of which no man in the world is free. ... The vice I am talking about is Pride or Self-conceit. .... Pride leads to every other vice. ... A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. ... Pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense."

Tom -- who told me about Jesus Christ that night -- didn't know I was in utter despair over Watergate, watching the president I'd worked for flounder in office. I'd learned I might become a target of the investigation. In short, my world was collapsing.

That night I sat in a darkened driveway and in a flood of tears called out to God. I didn't know what to say; I just knew I needed Christ. At that moment God took the White House "hatchet man" and turned me into a new creation.

I went on to serve seven months in prison. As lonely and demeaning as that experience was, I have never regretted it. I can honestly agree with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote from the gulag, "Bless you, prison, bless you for being in my life, for there, lying on the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity, as we are made to believe, but the maturing of the human soul."

Which brings me to a second reason for Blagojevich's fall: the culture of self.

Like me, Blagojevich grew up in a culture that taught the great goal of life was material success, power and influence. I grew up during the Great Depression; I thought if a smart guy like me earned a law degree and accumulated academic honors, they would enable me to find power, fulfillment and meaning in life.

I made a lot of money in my law practice and accepted a White House job. But by then, I had became very self-righteous; I was absolutely certain that no one could corrupt me. All my investments went into a blind trust. Whenever someone gave me a gift, I immediately turned it over to my chauffeur. And yet I ended up going to prison.

I now realize that every human being has an infinite capacity for self-rationalization and self-delusion. Those who serve in public life are faced with enormous peer pressure and don't always take time to stop and think carefully about what they're doing.

Sometimes -- absorbed in accumulating political power -- they're not interested in stopping to think. But as I learned firsthand, self-obsession destroys character. It has to.

Tragically, America is continuing to rear its young to become not only self-obsessed, but obsessed with personal power. Quaint-sounding virtues such as courage, honesty and prudence -- historically considered the elements of character -- are no match for a society in which the exaltation and gratification of self becomes the overriding goal of life.

If Blagojevich is guilty, the best thing that could happen to him is to be tried and convicted. He's going to have to reach rock bottom -- just as I did -- before he will be able to escape his own prison of pride, self-delusion and self-righteousness. But that's a transformation we can never accomplish on our own. I can vouch for the fact that human pride is simply too strong.

Lewis was right: Pride is a spiritual cancer. And the only cure, for any of us, is to stop looking down and to look up. The cure can only be brought about in someone who has come to realize that the will and power to do good and not evil comes from God alone.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Charles W. Colson. 

Christian One Liners-Humor w/ a Twist!

I wish I could credit the compiler of the following. I can't. For now, just enjoy them!

1.    Don't let your worries get the best of you, remember, Moses started out as a basket case.

2.    Many folks want to serve God, but only as advisers

3.    It is easier to preach ten sermons than it is to live one

4.    The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come close.

5.    When you get to your wit's end, you'll find God lives there.

6.    Opportunity may knock once, but temptation bangs on your front door forever

7.    If the church wants a better pastor, it only needs to pray for the one it has.

8.    Peace starts with a smile.

9.    We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges

10.Be ye fishers of men. You catch them - He'll clean them.

11.Coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous.

12.Don't put a question mark where God put a period.

13.God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called.

14.God grades on the cross, not the curve.

15.God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage.

16.He who angers you, controls you!

17.If God is your Copilot -- swap seats!

18.Prayer: Don't give God instructions -- just report for duty!

19.The task ahead of us is never as great as the Power behind us.

20.The Will of God will never take you to where the Grace of God will not protect you.

21.You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him.

 

Spirituality: Counter-Cultural (Part 3)

Part 3--This final section (of my post) of the Eugene Peterson interview poses the question about reaching different people groups. Remember, this interview took place in 2005. 

What if we were to frame this not in terms of needs but relevance? Many Christians hope to speak to generation X or Y or postmoderns, or some subgroup, like cowboys or bikers—people for whom the typical church seems irrelevant.

When you start tailoring the gospel to the culture, whether it's a youth culture, a generation culture or any other kind of culture, you have taken the guts out of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not the kingdom of this world. It's a different kingdom.

My son Eric organized a new church six years ago. The Presbyterians have kind of a boot camp for new church pastors where you learn what you're supposed to do. So Eric went. One of the teachers there said he shouldn't put on a robe and a stole: "You get out there and you meet this generation where they are."

So Eric, being a good student and wanting to please his peers, didn't wear a robe. His church started meeting in a high-school auditorium. He started out by wearing a business suit every Sunday. But when the first Sunday of Advent rolled around, and they were going to have Communion, he told me, "Dad, I just couldn't do it. So I put my robe on."

Their neighbors, Joel and his wife, attended his church. Joel was the stereotype of the person the new church development was designed for—suburban, middle management, never been to church, totally secular. Eric figured he was coming because they were neighbors, or because he liked him. After that Advent service, he asked Joel what he thought of his wearing a robe.

He said, "It made an impression. My wife and I talked about it. I think what we're really looking for is sacred space. We both think we found it."

I think relevance is a crock. I don't think people care a whole lot about what kind of music you have or how you shape the service. They want a place where God is taken seriously, where they're taken seriously, where there is no manipulation of their emotions or their consumer needs.

Why did we get captured by this advertising, publicity mindset? I think it's destroying our church.